


Glitch in the System: Chemicals and Circuitry

by SystemGlitch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 02:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SystemGlitch/pseuds/SystemGlitch
Summary: By E.A shower happens.





	Glitch in the System: Chemicals and Circuitry

“ _Dammit_.”

Widowmaker looked up from her cross-legged position on Sombra’s bed, briefly detaching herself from the book she was reading to glance across the room at where the hacker stood before the mirror in her attached bathroom suite, attempting to shave her head.

“Problem,  _cherie_?” she asked, slipping a bookmark between the sheets of paper to mark her spot. Long legs unfolding, she slipped off the mattress to join Sombra in the bathroom.

“Just didn’t think too hard about basic style maintenance when I got these installed,” she grumbled, setting the electric razor down and running a hand over the bare spot she accidentally clipped too close to her skull. “Years later and this is still the hardest thing I have to do.”

“Not as simple as hacking into complex corporate mainframes, I’m certain,” Widowmaker mused, reaching up to touch the newly soft fuzz at the back of Sombra’s neck. “Would you like help?”  
  
“You want to shave my head?”

Widowmaker smiled, somehow managing to look both endearing and patronizing at the same time. Of all her expressions, the unintentional haughtiness with which the sniper showed amusement was by far Sombra’s favorite. “It is better than listening to you curse for an hour.”

“I try and use a variety of colorful words to keep it interesting,” Sombra said, grinning, and handing over the electric razor. “Good luck. Don’t make it worse.”

“Not to worry. You have set a low bar for me.”

Sombra rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, letting Widowmaker get to work.

“Sit,” the sniper said, pulling over one of the many large chairs in Sombra’s room. “It will be easier for me.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sombra replied, flopping into the big red chair. Widow positioned herself behind her, and Sombra watched the sniper carefully assessing the damage she’d wrought upon her own head. She ran her fingers gently over the growing hair along her part where there was always an irritating, haphazard ridge of spiky hair that grew in whichever direction it chose. Usually Sombra got to it before it grew out long enough to be noticeable, but she’d been lazy lately and it was more than ready to be tamed.

The buzzing of the electric razor pulled her attention back from fixating on the state of her hair, and she winced unnecessarily as Widow pressed it against her scalp.

“Did I hurt you?” she sniper asked, pulling back slightly and tilting her head.

“No, I just always hate the feeling of vibrating metal against my skull,” Sombra replied. It was a fleeting discomfort, but one she experienced every time regardless.

Widowmaker nodded, gently placing it back against her scalp and drawing the blade down in a straight line. “I imagine it would be unpleasant.” She brought the razor flush against one of the curved cybernetics, taking care not to rattle the metal against it. Pulling back, she switched the machine off for a moment to run a finger along the shining pink metal. “I would imagine this was not pleasant, either?” she asked.

“Not really,” Sombra said, shrugging. “Not unless you’re into having drill bits crammed into your skull.”

Widowmaker nodded, resuming her work. She persisted in silence for a minute or two, assessing Sombra’s head with an intensity she usually reserved for the movement patterns of those she intended on killing. “How was it done?” she asked after a while.

“How was what done?”  
  
“These,” she pointed at her cybernetics. “How were they installed?” Frowning in thought, she moved the razor down to the back of the hacker’s head. “I have never endured cybernetics. How did it feel?”

Sombra laughed lightly, remembering the day she decided to have the work done. It had seemed an almost casual decision at the time, considering she’d felt like she’d had no option but to have them done. “Like hell, really. It felt terrible. Heads weren’t made to be fucked with like that.”

Widowmaker chuckled knowingly. “ _That_  is a sentiment with which I can agree.”  
  
“Oof, sorry spider.”

Widowmaker gently smacked the back of her head. “It is fine. I am curious.”

Sombra sat for a moment as Widowmaker brushed the wretched small hairs she’d shorn free away from the back of her neck. They always got everywhere despite her efforts at preventing or brushing them away. She rarely made the effort anymore, but she appreciated Widowmaker’s attempts. Only a shower would eradicate them at this point, and even that was debatable.

“It was weird, really. Uncomfortable more than anything. The physical implantation was done with so much local anaesthetic that I didn’t really feel much, but I  _felt_  like I should be feeling a lot, so it was almost the same thing.” She shrugged her left shoulder, Widow’s hand on her right as she reached around her for a hair tie to restrain the longer hair cascading down the other side of her head. “Phantom pain, you know? It’s like your body knows something’s being done to it, and it hates it, so it reminds you that you’re fucking with it even if you can’t feel it by the usual means.”

“ _Oui_ ,” Widow murmured in response. “I understand this.”

“The weirdest part, though?” Sombra said, regarding her reflection in the mirror. The sniper wasn’t doing too poorly. “Afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

“Yeah, like once the implants had been completed and the nervewire had snaked its way through the tiny holes the cyberneticist drilled into my skull.”

At this, Widow paused, holding the razor above Sombra’s head. “Drilled holes?”

“ _Sí, araña_. Wire’s got to get in there to complete the neural interface somehow.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” The sniper shook her head. “I dislike the imagery.”

Sombra laughed. “Yeah, fair. Nervewire’s terrible. It’s just a pile of weird, thin silver tendrils until you get it near organic material. Then it moves and wriggles and reaches of its own volition. Like it’s alive,” she shivered involuntarily at the memory. “I mean I’d do it again, but at least I’d know going in that it was going to get weird.”

“I did not realize such a thing was required.”

“It’s needed to bridge the gap between meat and machine. My cyberneticist called it ‘ubermensch ribbon.’ I think she thought she was being funny.” She leaned away slightly as Widow pushed against her head. “It replicates nerve endings and pathways, getting into muscle striations and other areas to complete delicate connections. Feels like someone’s pushing ice water with shards of glass floating in it through your veins, though. If you feel like being really grossed out, you can even watch it winding around under your skin.”

Sombra looked up at Widowmaker pulling a particularly discomfited face, and cut her description short.

“After that?” Widow asked, resuming her attentions under the right side of Sombra’s head. The undercut was trickier, but no one had steadier hands than the sniper.

“After that,  _cielito_ , I was fucked up,” she laughed. “It was like every emotion was turned on in my head and I had no way of reacting to it. I’d go from angry to sad to really, really excited in the span of a minute.”

“Ah, yes,” Widowmaker nodded. “I empathize.”

“Shut up.”  
  
The spider grinned.

“It was like grasping at smoke, you know? You could see it - it was there - but the moment you tried to hold onto it, it was gone. Sometimes I would just stare into space mid-thought and forget entirely what I had been doing.” Sombra held still as Widowmaker brought the razor around to the side of her head. She always hated the way it buzzed against her ear. “Plus I could feel the nervewire creating new pathways in real time.”

“The brain cannot feel,” Widow commented, raising an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t painful so much as just this creeping knowledge that it was happening. The same disembodied discomfort as when I had it installed. It felt like it should hurt, but it didn’t.”

Sombra shook her head as Widowmaker unleashed her tied back hair, watching the purple ombre fall back into place. “It was even stranger watching as things turned on. First my hard light screen, then wireless connectivity. It took a week for my arm cybernetics to sync with my cerebral ones, but as soon as it did it was like someone turned on all the lights at once: blinding at first, but then I could see absolutely  _everything_.”

Widowmaker ran a brush through Sombra’s hair as she scrunched her curls back into shape, adding a bit of water to form them better. “I suppose I did not realize they were so connected to you.”

Sombra raised her eyebrows suggestively. “I can look up anything without lifting a finger. Direct hardline to the brain means I can think my searches into existence.”

“I can’t imagine that ever goes wrong.”

Sombra winced. “There have been some times.”

Widowmaker stepped back from Sombra’s chair. “I believe I am done,” she said, tilting her head to assess her work. “Does it look all right?”

Sombra stood up and leaned closer to the mirror, running a hand between her cybernetics. “ _Perfecto_. Thank you, that was much easier than doing it myself.” Standing on her toes, she kissed Widow’s cheek. “Now I’ve got to shower all this fuzz off before it drives me nuts.”

“Do you need help with that, too?” Widowmaker asked so nonchalantly that Sombra nearly dismissed it out of hand.

She grinned back at her. “Oh, absolutely.”


End file.
